Abstract

Managing the data generated by emerging spatiotemporal data sources, such as geosensor networks, presents a growing challenge to traditional, offline GIS architectures. This paper explores the development of an end-to-end system for near real-time monitoring of environmental variables related to wildfire hazard, called RISER. The system is built upon a geosensor network and web-GIS technologies, connected by a stream-processing system. Aside from exploring the system architecture, this paper focuses specifically on the important role of stream processing as a bridge between data capture and web GIS, and as a spatial analysis engine. The paper highlights the compromise between efficiency and accuracy in spatiotemporal stream processing that must often be struck in the stream operator design. Using the specific example of spatial interpolation operators, the impact of changes to the configurations of spatial and temporal windows on the accuracy and efficiency of different spatial interpolation methods is evaluated.